The fifth day of the festival began, and the four of them had lots and lots of fun. Sasuke was the happiest man in the world, with Naruto by his side. He would even smile (small and quick smiles, but it was more than enough); Naruto was the all talkative, loud, cute dobe he had always been; Gaara, was happy, but still a bit introverted, and Yuurie, well, she was a cheerful little girl.

The next day, all of them began the journey back to the Spring Country´s capital, were Yukie and Kenji were happy to have their daughter with them again. They thanked Naruto, Sasuke and Gaara for taking care of her, and congratulated the new couple, and sent their greetings to Sakura, Kakashi and Tsunade.

Then, Gaara decided he would go with them to Konoha, after all, he had to discuss somethings with Tsunade and he wanted to watch Sasuke when they got to Konoha.

He had to know if he treated Naruto well, if not, he was going to have the Uchiha´s head, and he knew that he wasn´t the only one. Sai, Neji, Kiba, Hinata, Lee, Chouji, Shikamaru, Iruka, Kakashi, Shino, Tsunade, Jiraiya, Ino and Sakura, cared a lot about the kitsune, and if someone hurt him, all of them would kill that person in less time that you say "hello". Specially the ones that had changed because of him, meaning him, Sai, Neji, Tsunade and even Hinata. Of course, Iruka would be the most furious one, since he was very protective of Naruto.

But Gaara hoped everything would be ok, and not only Sasuke, but his fangirls and some villagers that still didn´t like Naruto. When he went to Konoha, many times he had heard the whispers about Naruto and him, about their demons, and all that stuff, that drove him mad, to the point he sometimes wanted to kill those people.

Why did the people was so stupid sometimes? Why, if after all these years Naruto hadn´t done anything to them, they still hated him?

He understood that they were angry and sad because of Kyubbi, who had kill so many people, but Naruto had made a sacrifice to protect the village, he had even lost his father, the Yondaime Hokage. And yet, people were so cruel sometimes... it was beyond his understanding.
And if they dared to do anything, he would first talk to Tsunade personally, and then, he would kill them. It was more than enough.

Finally, after a calm and beautiful journey of three days, they got to Konoha at miday, so most of people were out, eating, shopping or doing the usual stuff in a village. They came through the gates, and Naruto was about to leave, when Sasuke took his hand, and asked:

"Just where are you going without me?"

"To oba-chan´s office? We have give the report of the mission, you know?" Naruto said, looking at Sasuke as he had forgotten what to do after a mission. Sasuke said:

"Well, why don´t we go to eat something first? I bet Gaara is also hungry."

"Yeah, I agree with that." Gaara said, and he was relieved to see that Sasuke was acting as his possessive self with the blond.

Naruto smiled and was about to say something when Sasuke said:

"And, yes, we are going to Ichiraku´s. Come on, dobe."

"Don´t call me that, teme! Well, if it´s your trait, it´s ok with me." Naruto said, grinning madly. Gaara said:

"I´ll pay. Just because."

Naruto smiled, and the three of them went to Ichiraku´s, but it 5 minutes hadn´t even pass, when Gaara already could hear the whispers, this time about Naruto and Sasuke, because they were holding hands, and Sasuke even kissed the blond in the cheek, making Naruto blush like fire.

The fangirls, were more than mad, they had a murderous intent that could have scared even Kyubbi; but Gaara looked at them with his worst glare, and they fled like rats. He almost laughed when that happened, but in that moment they got to Ichiraku, and the girl, Ayame seeing Sasuke and Naruto, said:

"Well, well. Sasuke-san, Naruto-kun, it seems like that mission brought very good news. I´m happy for you."

"Thanks, Ayame-chan!" Naruto said, with his usual grin. Teuchi, said, with his gentle smile, serving the three of them a plate of ramen:

"It´s in the house. It´s been long since we didn´t see you this happy, Naruto-san, Sasuke-san."

"Thanks. Itekimasu." The three of them said, and began to eat happily.

It wasn´t long before Iruka and Kakashi appeared, holding hands, and seeing Naruto and Sasuke´s hand entwined, Kakashi said:

"Uhm? Well, well. I don´t want to know what did you do in the mission. You sure are naughty kids."

"Kakashi!!!! I´m telling you, stop it or you´ll sleep in the couch!" Iruka said to his lover. Kakashi put his puppy eye, and shut up. Iruka, turning to the young ones, said:

"You better take care of him, Sasuke."

"I will." Sasuke said to his former sensei.

Little by little, the friends of Naruto, Sasuke and Gaara, began to appear, and congratulated them. Ino-Chouji, Kiba-Hinata, Lee-Sakura, Shikamaru-Temari, Shino-Tenten, and the single, Neji. Everyone was happy to see Naruto all easy going again, and to be able to talk to him at the same time as they could talk with Sasuke and that stuff. Finally, after they ate, Sasuke, Gaara and Naruto went to the Hokage´s Tower, and Tsunade was glad to see her plan had work, though this was more than expected, but she was more relaxed about both Sasuke and Naruto´s security, because they would protect each other no matter what. After giving the report, they decided to go to their houses.

Sasuke parted ways, and Naruto and Gaara were left alone. The Kazekage knew he would always be welcome in Naruto´s house, and something told him that he should be there, if anything happened. They stayed talking for a while, in their respective beds, until Naruto said:

"Well, Gaara, what about you? Anyone that caught you eye? Sasuke told me you told him you were in love."

"That was a lie. I´m not in love with anyone, I just said that so he would stop suspecting I was in love with you."

"Oh... well, good night."

"Night." Gaara said, and tried to fell asleep, but he could only do it when he had either done a lot of things, or nothing was worrying him (which was almost never), and in that moment, he was worried about his friend, so sleep was out of question.

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Yet, the morning came without incidents. But Gaara wasn´t the only one worried, so a soon as the Sun came out, the red head felt a familiar presence coming towards the house. Of course, it was Sasuke, so Gaara opened the door and let him in, saying:

"Don´t worry, he´s sleeping. Nothing happened."

"Oh, I´m glad. Thanks for staying here."

"No problem. Didn´t your fangirls annoy you yesterday?"

"After such a long time, I´ve learn how to avoid them perfectly." Sasuke answered, as they sat in the couch.

It wasn´t long before they heard a yawn and a very cute Naruto appeared, with his funny night cap. He rubbed his eyes and said:

"Good morning."

"Good morning. I guess you slept well." Gaara said. Naruto looked at him and asked:

"Why I shouldn´t sleep well? Is there something wrong?"

"No. Everything is ok." Sasuke answered.

The three of them had breakfast, and then, all of them had things to do. Sasuke had another small mission, that would take only one day, Gaara had a meeting with Tsunade and the elders, and Naruto, well, he decided to go training.


Sasuke had already finished his mission, and was about to take a rest, when he had a very bad feeling that something would happen. He looked around him, and he caugth a glimpse of something red behind a bush. He got closer, and it was a red fox, but dead. That sent shivers of fear through his body, and rushed to Konoha again. Thankfully, he wasn´t far from there, but he was worried, very, very worried. It took him less than fifteen minutes to see the training grounds outside Konoha.

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Gaara was in the middle of the most boring meeting he had ever had, so much that more than one time he found himself daydreaming, when he felt a shiver of fear running through his spine. He looked a bit startled and when he was about to reach his glass, it cracked. That worried him, and a lot, so he got up and said:

"I´m sorry, but I have to go. There´s something I have to check."

"Kazekage-sama, what´s wrong?" Tsunade asked. She knew that it had to be something really important, and when she saw the glass, she understood that something was wrong. She said:

"Of, course, Kazekage-sama. We shall continue this meeting as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama." Gaara said and rushed out of the room, towards the training grounds.

Gaara got there, at the same time Sasuke did. Sasuke said:

"Did you felt that?"

"There´s something wrong. Where the hell is Naruto?" Gaara answered, trying to find any trace of the blond shinobi´s chakra.

But the last traces were fading away, meaning Naruto had been there, not too long before. The question was, where was he now?

The two ninjas tried to keep themselves cool, and began to search anything that could tell them where their friend was. After some search, Gaara found a forehead protector, which ribbon was black, with some blood. He called Sasuke:

"Sasuke! Come here. Do you recognize this?"

"Naruto... what the hell happened?" Sasuke said, almost covering his mouth. Gaara said:

"Naruto is an ANBU. He either face many, many enemies in an ambush... or a very strong ninja."

"We must call Kakashi or Kiba, they are the ones that can follow his scent." Sasuke answered, but a voice said:

"What are you doing? What´s wrong?"

They turned, and saw the Inuzuka, with Akamaru by his side. Sasuke said:

"Kiba, something happened to Naruto. We have to find him, now. Could we borrow Akamaru, and you go to Tsunade explaining the situation?"

"What do you mean?" Kiba asked. Gaara said, showing him the forehead protector:

"Naruto was training, but then something must have happened and left this behind."

Kiba opened his mouth in disbelief, but said, after a few seconds:

"Akamaru, go with them, and obey them. Search for Naruto´s scent. I´ll follow you later."

Akamaru went to Sasuke´s side, and Kiba disappeared with a little smoke cloud. Gaara showed Akamaru the forehead protector, and the dog, after sniffing a few seconds, began to run, away from Konoha. The two shinobi´s followed him instantly


Naruto, opened his eyes slightly. He thought:

"Damn, what the hell happened? I was training and then... everything went dark. Where am I?"

He tried to look around, but everything was so dark, that he couldn´t see anything, besides his hair, that fell over his eyes. He tried to move his arms or his legs, but something was holding him, but it wasn´t either chains or ropes. It seemed to be something with chakra, and he felt as tired as hell, and his body hurt, like if someone had puched him all over his body a thousand times. He sniffed the faint smell of his own blood. He screamed, but it sounded like if he was caged, and underneath something.

And, suddenly, it was hard to breath. He thought that he must be caged, somewhere, where air or light didn´t enter easily, meaning underground. He was scared, but tried to relax and to find a way out, before he ran out of air. But he couldn´t do any seals or anything to save himself. He called Kyubbi, but the fox said:

"Kid, even I can´t do anything. A ninjutsu is draining our chakra, and I have to heal you first. But I won´t have much chakra after that, because you´re are almost dead, with this injuries. I won´t be able to heal you completely. Though I wonder if healing you will be useful, because I don´t think we´ll scape from this one."

"What do you mean?"

"We are in a coffin, under the earth. So, no matter if you scream or try to escape, there´s no way out. We can´t use any ninjutsu, genjutsu or taijutsu. This time, I really think it´s over."

"But.. what happened? How did we ended up here?"

"You can say thanks to some villagers, and a ninja fangirl of Sasuke. She knocked you out, and the villagers puched you and almost killed you. And, as the cherry of the cake, put you in a coffin and buried you were nobody can find you. And the girl made this ninjutsu. Sorry kid, I really can´t help you."

"But, Gaara and Sasuke, and everyone... they´ll try to find me."

"But it´ll be too late. The maximum we have of air, is for about 5 minutes. I don´t think they´ll make it on time, if they had already found out about your disappearance. Try not to think, kid. You better relax."

"Sure, I´m about to die and you want me to relax... but then again, I wished... I could have seen him... one... last... time."

Those were Naruto´s final thoughts, before he fainted again, as his air and chances of living ran out.


This shall be the end of Naruto? Is he dead? And, will Sasuke, Akamaru and Gaara will find him? Tell me what you think.

And, hey, I was seeing my stats, and there are at least 16 people reading this story, so, I´ll wait at least 8 reviews, and I´ll update as soon as that happens.